After
years of rifling through other folks' junk in hopes of scoring the deal
of a lifetime, it was my turn to contribute to the secondhand cycle.
This past Saturday, I found myself on the other side of the yard sale
process for the first time. As a dedicated worshipper in the Church of
Secondhand Shopping, I figured it would be a breeze to put on my own
yard sale. I had a good handle on how much a person would pay for used
stuff; I'd had experience in the secondhand bargaining ritual. I was a
yard sale veteran.

I was so naïve.

Which is why five minutes past
supposed yard sale time Saturday morning, I found myself standing at a
nearby intersection, one foot pressed on a mountain of signs to keep
them from flying off into the street, cursing at the tape that preferred
to wrap itself around my hand rather than the poster I was attempted to
adhere to the traffic light pole. Meanwhile, strangers shouted at me
from their rolled-down car windows, "Hey, are you the ones who
advertised the big moving sale? Where the heck is it?"

As I rapidly learned, being on
the selling end of yard-saling has its fair share of challenges and
pitfalls, no matter how many yard sales you've frequented in the past.
Here's what I got out of the experience, besides a fat wad of cash. A
few words of advice for anyone contemplating having a yard sale of their
own…

don't go
solo
Friends don't let friends yard sale alone. Seriously, if you're thinking
you're going to run your sale all by your lonesome, think again. Yard
sales are a grotesque amount of work, and the more people you have
involved in the event the easier it'll be on your sanity. We ended up
pooling together with some friends who had gotten married last fall and
had a heap of household goods from their pre-wedding-registry life to
purge, and another friend who was clearing out her storage unit to avoid
shipping her stuff out to her new digs in Portland. Five people, one
great big yard sale. Sure, any single one of us probably had enough
stuff to warrant a decent sale, but with all our goods combined, it was
a sale that had folks raving about its fabulousness. So corral some of
your friends into joining your sale -- not only will you have a better
range and quantity of offerings, you'll find that the entire process
goes down a whole lot smoother. On top of which, it's just a whole lot
more fun to be sharing the experience with your buds -- suddenly
something that could be a real chore starts to feel like a party.

good timing
Saturdays are the indisputable king of yard sale days. You might think
having your sale on a Sunday would be a good idea because it gives you
more free time to adequately prep; this may be true, but the fact of the
matter is that most folks prefer to save their Sunday mornings for
lazier activities than schlepping all over town for potential secondhand
treasure. As for what Saturday to pick, the only ones you'll want to
avoid are the ones that center around holiday long weekends.